David Gemmel - The Hawk Eternal

Returning to the kitchen, Maeg found Kareen had arrived with the morning milk and was busy transferring it to the stone jug by the wall. Kareen was a child of the mountains, orphaned during the last winter. Only fifteen, it would be a year before she could be lawfully wed and she had been sent by the Hunt Lord, Cambil, to serve Maeg in the difficult early months following the birth of Donal. In the strictest sense Kareen was a servant under indenture, but in the Highlands she was a “child of the house,” a short-term daughter to be loved and cared for after the fashion of the clans. Kareen was a bright, lively girl, not attractive but strong and willing. Her face was long and her jaw square, but she had a pretty smile and wore it often. Maeg liked her.

“Beth’s yield is down again,” said Kareen. “I think it’s that damned hound of Bolan’s. It nipped her leg, you know. Caswallon should chide him about it.”

“I’m sure that he will,” said Maeg. “Would you mind seeing to Donal if he wakes? I’ve a mind to collect some herbs for the pot.”

“Would I mind? I’d be delighted. Has he been fed?”

“He has, but I don’t doubt he’ll enjoy the warmed oats you’ll be tempting him with,” said Maeg, winking.

Kareen grinned. “He’s a healthy eater, to be sure. How is the Lowland boy?”

“Healing,” Maeg told her. “I’ll be back soon.” Lifting her shawl cloak from the hook by the door, Maeg swung it about her shoulders and stepped out into the yard.

Kareen placed the last of the stone jugs by the wall, hefted the empty bucket, and walked out to the well to wash it clean.

She watched Maeg strolling toward the pasture woods, admiring the proud, almost regal movements and rare animal grace that could not be disguised by the heavy woolen skirt and shawl. Maeg was beautiful. From her night-dark hair to her slender ankles she was everything Kareen would never be. And yet she was unconscious of her beauty and that, more than anything, led Kareen to love her.

Maeg enjoyed walking alone in the woods, listening to the birdsong and reveling in the solitude. It was here that she found tranquillity. Caswallon, despite being the love of her life, was also the cause of great turmoil. His turbulent spirit would never be content with the simple life of a farmer and cattle breeder. He needed the excitement and the danger that came from raiding the herds of neighboring clans, stealing into their lands, ghosting past their sentries. One day they would catch and hang him.

You’ll not change him, Maeg, she thought.

Caswallon had been a child of the mountains, born out of wedlock to a flighty maid named Mira who had died soon after childbirth-supposedly of internal bleeding, though clan legend had it that her father poisoned her. She had never divulged the name of her lover. Caswallon had been raised in the house of the Hunt Lord, Padris, as foster brother to Cambil. The two boys had never become friends.

At seventeen Caswallon left the home of Padris with a dagger, a cloak, and two gold pieces. Everyone had assumed he would become a crofter, eking out a slender existence to the north. Instead he had gone alone to Pallides land and stolen a bull and four cows. From the Haesten he stole six cows, selling three in Ateris. Within a year every out-clan huntsman watched for Caswallon of the Farlain.

Maggrig, the Pallides Hunt Lord, offered two prize bulls to the man who could kill him. Caswallon stole the bulls.

At first his fellow clansmen had been amused by his exploits. But as his wealth grew, so too did the jealousy. The women, Maeg knew, adored Caswallon. The men, quite naturally, detested him. Three years ago, following the death of Padris, Cambil was elected as Hunt Lord and Caswallon’s stock among the men plunged to fresh depths. For Cambil despised him, and many were those seeking favor with the new lord.

This year, Caswallon had even declined to take part in the Games, though as defending champion he could have earned points for the clan. What was worse, he had given as his reason that he wished to stay home with his lady, who had a showing of blood in her pregnancy. He had put her to bed and undertaken the household chores himself-an unmanly action.

Yet, as his stock had fallen with the men, so it climbed in direct proportion with the women.

Now there was the business of the Lowland boy, and the almost perverse use of clan law to accommodate the act. How could he invoke Cormaach for such a one? The old law-crafted to allow for the children of a fallen warrior to be adopted by relatives of the hero-had never been invoked to bring a Lowlander into the clans.

Cambil had refused to speak publicly against Caswallon, but privately he had voiced his disgust in the Council. Yet Caswallon, as always, was impervious to criticism.

It was the same when he caught two Haesten hunters on Farlain lands. He had thrashed them with his quarterstaff, but he had not cut off their fingers. That and his marriage to Maeg had left the Council furious: a slight, they called it, on every Farlain maiden.

Against their fury Caswallon adopted indifference. And in some quarters this fanned the fury to hatred.

All of this Maeg knew, for there were few secrets among the Farlain, and yet Caswallon never spoke of it. Always he was courteous, even to his enemies, and rarely had anyone in the three valleys seen him lose his temper. This was read by many as a sign of weakness, but among the women, who often display greater insights in these matters, there was no doubt as to Caswallon’s manhood.

If he didn’t maim the hunters, there was a reason that had naught to do with cowardice. And Caswallon’s reasons, whatever they were, were good enough for his friends. Since no answer would justify his actions to those who hated him, Caswallon offered them exactly that-no answer.

It was a matter of sadness for Maeg that the result of the hatred would be the letting of blood and a death feud between Farlain houses. But that was a worry for tomorrow, and there were always more pressing problems of today to concern the women of the mountains.

Unaware of the controversy, of which he was now a part, the boy Gaelen sat in the cave slowly unwinding the bandage around his head, gently easing it from the line of stitches on his brow and cheek.

With infinite care he rubbed away the clotted blood sealing the eyelid and gently prized the eye open. At first his vision was blurred, but slowly it cleared and perspective returned, though a pink haze disturbed him. By the hearth was a silver mirror. Gaelen picked it up and gazed at his reflection. No expression crossed his face as he looked upon his scars, but something cold settled on his heart as he saw the eye.

It was totally red, suffused with blood, giving him a demonic appearance. The top of his head had been shaved to allow the stitches to be inserted, though now the hair was growing again. But it was growing white around the scar.

A change came over him then, for he felt the fear of the Aenir drift away like morning mist, making way for something far stronger than fear.

Hatred filled him, instilling in his soul a terrible desire for vengeance.

For three weeks Gaelen stayed in or around the cave, watching the rain and the sunshine that followed it turn the mountain gorse to gold. He saw the snow recede from the mountain peaks and the young deer emerge from the woods to the fast-flowing streams. In the distance he saw a great brown bear stretching to claw his territorial mark on the trunk of a wiry elm, and the rabbits hopping in the long grass of the meadow in the pink light of dawn.

At night he talked to Oracle, the two of them sitting on a rug before the fire. He heard the history of the clans, and began to learn the names of the legendary heroes-Cubril, the man known as Blacklatch, who first carried the Whorl stone; Grigor, the Flame-dancer who fought the enemy even as his house burned around him; Ironhand and Dunbar. Strong men. Clansmen.